A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [51]
“The press blew it all out of proportion,” Jerry said quickly.
“A lot of layoffs, though,” Harrison said.
“Some.”
“Lucky thing you kept your job,” Harrison said.
“Hey, I got eighty guys under me.”
“Really,” Harrison said, mildly satisfied with the exchange.
“Can you believe Rob?” Jerry asked after a time.
“What about him?”
“The guy he brought?”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Rob yet,” Harrison said.
Jerry signaled over Harrison’s shoulder. “Rob,” he called. “Hey.”
Harrison turned as Rob walked toward them. “Harrison,” Rob said, “this is Josh. Josh, this is Harrison Branch. And did I mention that Jerry Leyden here was once the best sinker-ball pitcher in Maine?”
“All New England,” Jerry said.
Harrison remembered Rob as a gawky, good-natured teenager with bad skin, but he could see few signs of the boy in the man standing before him. The cut and fabric of Rob’s coat were exceptionally fine, and there was no trace of that long-ago acne.
“Christ, can’t anyone get a drink here?” Jerry asked, pointing with his empty glass toward the drinks table. “Talk to you later.”
“Congratulations on your success,” Harrison said to Rob when Jerry had left them. “I’ve heard you play to huge crowds.”
Rob shrugged, a star in his own universe, a man used to praise. “Josh and I come out here in the summer with the BSO to Tanglewood,” he said. “Now that we know Nora has this inn, we’ll eat here from now on.” He looked at Josh and put a hand on his shoulder. “Josh is playing with the London Symphony next week.”
“Well done,” Harrison said to Josh.
“I didn’t know what to say to Bill,” Rob confided to Harrison. “I didn’t know whether to start with congratulations on the wedding or with an expression of sympathy for Bridget and what she’s going through.”
“I think one begins and ends with congratulations,” Harrison said.
“Do you know how they met up again?”
“Someone said it was at our twenty-fifth reunion. Did you go?” Harrison asked.
“No. I forget why now. Probably I was touring. I think I would have gone. Yes, I’m sure I would have gone,” he said, and Harrison wondered if it would have been to make a political statement: Yes, there has always been gay life at Kidd.
“I was just thinking this afternoon that the last thing you should have been doing at Kidd was playing baseball,” Harrison said. “You could have jammed a finger, ruined your career.”
“I think I was trying to assert my masculinity,” Rob said, and Josh smiled. Harrison guessed a private joke.
“Well, you did that well enough,” Harrison said, remembering Rob’s spectacular dives in right field.
“Did you bring your wife?” Rob asked.
“This was such short notice, she couldn’t get away. She has a case.”
“She’s a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Did you bring pictures?”
Harrison shook his head. It had never crossed his mind to bring photographs of his family.
Josh whipped out an envelope. “These are the pictures of our trip to Greece,” he said.
Harrison studied each snap in the packet. Rob and Josh on a white beach. Rob and Josh on a yacht too big to fit in the photo. Rob and Josh in black tie standing on a white marble balcony overlooking a lime-green sea.
“Rob gets invited all over the world,” Josh explained, “by people who love the piano.”
“Did you ever give a concert at Kidd?” Harrison asked.
“I used to give concerts at the Congregational church in town. I didn’t tell anyone at Kidd. I was very ambivalent about the piano then. But there was a music teacher at school, Mrs. Lamb?”
“I remember her vaguely.”
“Big hair? Pink glasses? She took me under her wing and coached me all during my senior year and for two years after that. I worked the register at the supermarket in town to pay for the lessons. She got me into Juilliard.”
“I used to work at that supermarket,” Harrison said, returning the packet of photographs to Josh.
“Nora looks great, don’t you think?” Rob asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“She’s really got an eye.”
“She certainly seems to have come into her own,” Harrison offered. He wished